Francis Fukuyama and Karl Eikenberry: Friendless Obama needs Middle Eastern allies of convenience

If there is one thing Americans should have learnt from their recent wars, it is that they do not have the wisdom, resources or staying power to dictate political outcomes. Not long ago Washington aspired to build prosperous democracies in Afghanistan and Iraq. Today it would be satisfied if they simply hung together as countries.President Barack Obama says the US should recognise that the world is “messy”. His strategy has been to avoid doing “stupid stuff”.

And yet he is again trying to put a more ambitious face on American policy, asserting this month that the US would “degrade and ultimately destroy” the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, the al-Qaeda offshoot known as Isis. Air strikes quickly followed.

Yet he is overpromising. The US needs a more feasible strategy. Mr Obama could learn from England’s policy – and later Britain’s – towards the European continent over the centuries. London had no permanent friends. But whenever a single power looked set to dominate Europe, the country would throw its weight behind an opposing coalition, a strategy known as “offshore balancing”. Britain was never a land power but its navy and economic might turned the balance against would-be hegemons.

This is a role America is well suited to play. The US is in no position to end the Sunni-Shia conflict that is spreading throughout the greater Middle East. Washington lacks the tools to bring about a political settlement that would instil real democracy in Syria or good governance in Iraq. It can only hope that the fighting does not last as long as the 30 years’ war fought between Protestants and Catholics in 17th century Europe. What America can do, however, is prevent any of the really bad participants, such as Isis and the Assad regime, from winning a decisive victory.

Isis has overextended itself in Syria and Iraq, and has only narrow ideological appeal. It is vulnerable to attack from the air, and to ground counteroffensives by regional allies. The latter will have to do most of the fighting and dying but they have a strong incentive to do so given the murderous intentions of Isis. Washington would have to reverse cuts to the defence budget, but this is inevitable anyway, given the challenges posed by Russia and China.

The US has no permanent friends or enemies in this sectarian struggle. True, there are groups Washington would like to protect, such as the Kurds and the elected but fragile Baghdad government. The oil-producing Gulf states share common interests with America, and some of them participated in Monday night’s US-led air strikes inside Syria. But few of these countries are real democracies. All have been contributors to the conflagration, and all have supported violent extremists at one time or another. Conversely, while the US has regarded Iran as its prime opponent, the goal of defeating Isis is one Washington shares with Tehran.

Acting as offshore balancer would mean eschewing such goals as destroying Isis. But the US is far from having uprooted al-Qaeda, despite 13 years of trying. Isis is unlikely to prove more susceptible. Nor should we necessarily want to destroy Isis, if this allows Bashar al-Assad to reclaim the whole of Syria.

Americans prefer decisive endings: the Japanese surrender on the deck of USS Missouri; the collapse of the Soviet Union. Aiming merely to contain a long and awful civil war, instead of settling it once and for all, is unappealing, not to say cynical. But it is hubris to think the US can even comprehend the root causes of this ethnic-sectarian war. When it tried using hard power in Iraq, the consequences proved worse than the original problem. Yet it can scarcely retreat from a world that is slipping out of control. Offshore balancing is a sustainable posture. What it promises, it can deliver.

Francis Fukuyama and Karl Eikenberry

Fonte: FT